BoRiNg....

I must admit that D Family has been very anticlimatic lately.  Mostly we have been working on Noah crawling, standing, enjoying his new found favorite word "dadadada dadada" which is yelled at operatic levels, while AnDy and I enjoy any time we can find in the midst of our busy opposite schedules.  Besides these tasks, the most exciting thing hs been to witness Noah learning to self feed.  It started out that by the time snack time was over, those little baby puffs would end up stuck all over his face, hands, arms, legs, and the rest of his tiny body.  He finally learned to grab handfuls of puffs in each palm and them proceeds to pinch another individual puff between his fingers before shoveling it into his mouth.  At the end of his treat, the puffs held tight in his tiny palms end up being nothing but mush.  So at the current rate about 20% of the puffs actually end up in his mouth with the remaining 80% being split between being smashed in his hands, on the floor, and stuck to various body parts.  I can't help but love this process of self feeding he's learning, it's quite cute and entertaining! : )

On a side note, I can't believe it's already the end of June!  Noah seems to be loving summer and all things a part of it (including watermelon, swimming, and being naked when it gets really hot).

I hope everyone has a great rest of the week!

Great Weekend!

D Family had a GREAT weekend!

First on Friday our little man turned 9 months!  I can't believe this little guy is already three quarters of a year old!  I'm already starting to get ideas for his 1st birthday and I'm excited because I believe it's going to be a fun theme!

Saturday, we went to some very close friends of ours wedding.  It was such a nice wedding and I loved how the bride came in by horse and carriage : )

She looked gorgeous!

And he was a pretty happy and handsome groom!

Noah got all dressed up for the occasion complete with plaid shorts and a bow tie and suspender print shirt :)

And Noah and I enjoyed our first time dancing in the mother/son dance with all of the other mom's and their boys! 

Finally on Sunday we celebrated Father's Day.  Andy is such a great daddy and I don't know if there's a daddy who's more in love with their little buddy as much as him!

Noah and mommy made daddy a nice breakfast which Andy picked out, blueberry pancakes (with fresh blueberries!) and corn beef hash.  Afterwords, Noah loved playing with daddy and telling him lots of stories : )  We eventually made it to a beach for a while and finally to Andy's parents for a cookout.  I know Father's Day was all about Andy and daddies everywhere.  But I sure felt more than blessed to spend a great weekend with my two favorite boys : )

Happy Hump Day and Swap!

Happy Hump Day everyone!  I first want to thank you all for being supportive of the minor changes that have started and that I hope will continue.  Not only is the change needed but I really am starting to think I'm a person who thrives on change.

Recently I participated in another swap, Bee Happy Swap, hosted by Amy of Bumble Bee Lane.  Once again I had a great time and received some fantastic goodies!  My swap partner was Kim from BlackBerry Crows Prims and these are the goodies she sent to me.  A lovely flower dish towel, a primmed up spoon with some gingham fabric, a cute little star ( I love stars).  She also sent that perfect doll in the flower dress with the nest and egg.  Lastly, she sent that prim perfect bee hive door hanger with a bumble bee and crow!  I LOVE it all, thanks so much! 

I hope everyone enjoys their hump day and has a good rest of the week! : )

Lately

I've kind of been MIA for a while.  Partly just trying to enjoy the nice weather and the other part being busy with all things that aren't so interesting. 

Lately there have been quite a few minor changes, which are for the better, that can make a pretty significant impact for D family.  Things were just not where we as a family wanted them and frankly put the same expression on my face as Noah gets when I give him peaches.  We're still not exactly where I hope to one day be, but we are definitely moving in a positive direction which gives me new hope for the future.  Whenever I'm in need of some change and it seems everything wants to stay put and not budge, I tend to get very discouraged very fast.  I guess that's pretty typical for type A personality who wants what they want right now! 

Anyhow, I'm very happy with these current changes and they put a brand new smile upon my face : )

DESIRED CHANGE #1 - To be a stay at home mom or to have a job I can actually tolerate.  Currently I pretty much despise my job.  Not the, "Oh I don't feel like working today." but the complete dread and hatred for the job.  I know I'm lucky to have a job and I thank God for that everyday.  I'm just wanting something a little more directed at what I would like to do.  Right now it's difficult to leave my family to go to a job I hate.  Even though being a stay at home mom is far from reach, a job I enjoy more would make leaving my family everyday slightly less of an emotional dissatisfaction.
    ACTUAL/CURRENT CHANGE - Well I'm by no means a stay at home mom and I'm still at the job I dislike beyond imagination.  I did, however, bid or apply for a different job within the same company but in a different department.  If I get it I will be in a lower position than I am now, but I don't care about a title.  It still isn't where I see myself in the future but it would be much better than where I'm at currently. 

DESIRED CHANGE #2 - Spend more time with Andy by Andy finding a new job with a matching work schedule as myself.  Andy and I have less than desirable schedules.  I work the typical 8-5 Monday through Friday and he works 1-8:30 Tuesday through Saturday.   Which leaves us only a full Sunday to do anything as a family together.  Sundays usually end up being the day we spend with the rest of my hubby's family and a day where we get things done which haven't been able to get done during the week.  Needless to say, it's not an easy thing to manage when you have completely different schedules than your spouse. 
    ACTUAL/CURRENT CHANGE - Well Andy has yet to find a new job.  He has, however, managed to get an extra day off a week, Saturday, which gives us a whole weekend to spend together.  I can't tell you  how happy that makes me : )

DESIRED CHANGE #3 - Get Noah exposed to new people and other babies his age and give Andy's mom a little break since the rest of the kids are out of school for the summer.  The intent was to get him into a good daycare at least part of the time to be exposed to new people and kids while lessening the amount of time Andy's family had to watch him. 
    ACTUAL/CURRENT CHANGE - We did find a good daycare for Noah and he is now starting to go every Tuesday.  This will give Andy a full morning to get some stuff, such as mowing, done and give Andy's mom a break.  His first day they said he did great and was very sociable!

DESIRED CHANGE #4 - Take more time out as a family and go on vacations.  The last vacation I went on with Andy was our honeymoon.  Usually our vacations are to go visit my family in Ohio.  I love these trips but they tend to be so hectic with visiting everyone that Andy and I get very little relaxing time together.
    ACTUAL/CURRENT CHANGE - We have decided to skip our usual 2nd trip to Ohio and decided to instead take an extended weekend trip to Maine later in the summer.  I can't wait to take Noah to the beach!

There are other things I guess I would like to change but I think everyone has at least some things that they may want different at one point or another.  These were my BIG changes which were very important to me.  I've felt stuck in a rut for a while and now with some progress I'm feeling slightly lighter and happier! : )

Great Memorial Day Weekend!

I know I'm a little late but D family had a great Memorial Day weekend! It's always nice to have extra long weekends with my family.  Saturday morning we had such a good time.  Noah played in his jumper until he fell fast asleep from playing so hard.

 Once daddy went to work, Noah and mommy enjoyed a nice day by the pool.  That is, a day by Noah's baby blow up pool.  He was accompanied by his cousin and both of them had a great time splashing around!

I think he had a good time!

He also got to take a snooze with daddy's memere and his great memere.

And got his first taste of cantelope.

Sunday, we went to this cute little girl's 1st birthday party.  She had a whole birthday cake for herself.  Brown with pink polka dots!

She was very careful not to get too messy.

But she enjoyed eating all of the pink polka dots off of the cake.

At the party they had a big blow up water slide.  The kids all enjoyed it and as you can see, my hubby was the biggest kid of them all.

He unsuccessfully tried to walk up the slide instead of going down.

I have to say I love his determination! : )

Then on Monday we had a nice cookout with hubby's family and celebrated all of the men and women who have and do serve our country.  It was so nice and we had such great weather!

Now, I must get back to watching the entire Lost series on Netflix.  I swore I would never start it but since I watched the first episode, I'm hooked!  Maybe this series will hold me over until Walking Dead starts back up.

I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend and continues to have a great week! : )



All About Noah

Lately things have been heavily focused on our dear precious baby D.  

Although it started even before he was born, he continues to take over parts of the house.  Slowly he's taking over more and more areas of the house.  I appoligize for the quality of some of the pictures as they were taken with my phone.

This first distorted picture is of Noah taking over, you guessed it, my side of the bed.  No he doesn't sleep in it all night or anything, he sleeps in his crib, which is still currently in our room.  He wakes up pretty early in the morning a little bit before I have to get up for work.  I just LOVE snuggling with the little guy and need to get my cuddle time before work.  But since he's getting so big, the cuddling with him on my chest just doesn't work because I feel like I can barely breathe.  My solution is to give him my side of the bed and curl up next to him.  He loves it!  But I will NOT let this turn into a family bed situation.  I need my own space to sleep in lol.  But this fun snuggle time is such a wonderful thing to start my day = )

Also not only does his play yard, piano, and toys take over the living room, but his jumper is smack dab in the middle of the walk through from the pellet stove room into the living room.  This is hooked up on the frame where I use to have my wooden village set ,which Andy's aunt gave us as a wedding present. 

So now they are spread out over 2 windows in the living room.  I have to say, I think I like them better there!

This growing boy use to only take up one whole set of cabinet space in the kitchen but now it's 2. 

 The bottom shelf is a little bare in the back but I have a TON of bottles to put away that were just washed.  I'm pretty sure that as he grows and starts to have older baby/toddler snack, these too will need to find a home.  This may require yet another cabinet space.

Speaking of baby food, I just tried introducing stage 3 food to Noah the other day.  I still don't think he's forgiven me for it lol.  As soon as the food hit his tongue he started fake coughing (as if he was choking) and screaming and crying.  I could clearly see he wasn't choking as I only gave him a tiny bit of food and it was still on his tongue.  He can be one dramatic little boy.  I am however sensing some texture issues.  I will wait a couple weeks and try again.  Maybe the next time he won't take his spoon and fling food at me in retaliation!

With summer approaching, Noah is going to be having lots of new adventures.  Starting tomorrow when I fill up his baby blow up pool so we can splash around and maybe have a picnic.  He loves bath time so he will probably LOVE this!  I can't wait!

The biggest adventure will start June 5th.  The hubby and I have decided to give his mom a break from taking care of Noah for every Tuesday.  This may be very much appreciated since hubby's 4 younger siblings will be off for summer break and will be home full time.  Where he's going for that 1 day of the week is something we've thought about for a while.  We have decided that it might be a good idea for Noah to go to a daycare to be with other babies his age.  This will be good socialization and will help him as he gets older to learn to listen to and respect his elders who aren't necessarily family.  I will keep you posted on how that goes. 

Yes, Noah has completely taken over our lives, heart, and home and we wouldn't have it any other way = )



Bay Window Conundrum

Yes my bay window is making headlines for me once again.  I'm still trying to find a decorating solution and not having very much luck.  I decided to put the throw pillows from the couch on the seat just to see what it looked like.  I didn't even think to take a picture but it was something similar to this except with more pillows.

This looks like a nice setup and a nice sitting area.  My problem, however is not what it looks like from the inside.  I loved how the pillows looked while being inside.  But as Andy nicely pointed out, "The window looks kind of weird from the outside.".  Hence my problem.  In the picture above it looks like this window is in the back of the house which would be less necessary to make it look nice from the outside; my window is in the front.

These bay windows make it a bit easier because they have a little wall space before the window starts.  That would be so nice and I wouldn't have to worry about how it looked from the outside.

Maybe I'm just being nit picky.  Should I just do what looks nice from the inside and not care if it looks a little weird from the outside.  Or should I find an alternate solution?  I've entertained the idea of taking the cushion off and using it as a kind of shelf for decorations.  But I just love the idea of extra sitting room. 

Advice is always welcome! :)